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HAWAII COUNTY CHARTER COMMISSION

Transcript of Public Hearing of July 7, 1999

Waimea Civic Center

Waimea, Hawaii

Members J. Ray, S. Bess, M. Herkes, D. Kurozawa, G. Martin

Present:

Absent: E. Alonzo, K. Balog,, R. Higashi, S. Irvine, J. Santangelo,

G.Yoshiyama

Chairman John Ray called the meeting to order at approximately 5:30 p.m.

RAY: This is a public hearing of the 1999-2000 Charter Commission in Waimea on the Big Island. It’s 5:30 p.m. Thank you for coming. I want to introduce the Commission members that are here this evening. On my right, Marni Herkes and next to Marni is Daryl Kurozawa, Steve Bess and to my left, George Martin and I’m John Ray.

RAY: Just to give you a brief background on the process that we are involved in. As mandated by law every ten years, this Charter Commission was appointed by the Mayor and approved by the County Council in January of this year. We’ve been meeting roughly monthly since February and focused initially on our internal organization and the hiring of staff. Our Administrative Assistant, Sharron Henry, is here this evening. Her duties include research, recording minutes, communicating both internally and with the public. Our legal staff, Mr. Chris Yuen who is not here this evening, makes sure we operate in a procedurally correct manner, is in charge of our legal research, opinions and drafting proposed Charter amendments. The budget, appropriated for this process, is $130.000. The last Charter review expended $113,000 on the Charter review about ten years ago. The major costs for staffing and for meeting including the public notices.

Recently we’ve completed a round of input from various County Departments to get major suggestions that they had in mind to get them on the table. Some of the suggestions that we’ve received, not all of which, are looking at the mandatory program review language in the Charter; responsibilities and placement of the Safety Coordinator position, whether to keep that under the Mayor or to possibly move it under the Corporation Counsel or Civil Service; some comments on the responsibilities of the Police Commission; the possible establishment of a Fire Commission; expanding the jurisdiction of the Salary Commission to cover all Department Heads and Deputies; looking at the minimum qualifications for Department Heads and Deputies; the possible creation of a Human Services Department to include elderly services and the Office of Aging; transferring the Wastewater Division from Public Works to the Water Department. One of the more involved submittals is the suggestion to create a Permitting Division which would consolidate all permitting functions under the Public Works Department now jointly dealt with in Planning and Public Works, the idea to create a more efficient one-stop shop for permitting and have the Planning Department concentrate more on planning and Public Works Department more on permitting. Those are just some of the ideas, the major ones, that have been put forth so far and I want to stress that none have been discussed by the Commission so it’s just been a one-way dialogue. They just passed this on to us.

Tonight we are in the third of six public hearings that we’re holding around the island to get initial feedback from the general public. These meetings will go through July and also during this time we’re gathering and distributing internally background material for the Commission to study. In August we hope to complete our initial phases of department review, especially including input from Boards and Commissions. Because Boards and Commissions have to agendize and discuss in a different procedure, their input to the Charter Commission, that takes a little bit long in the process so in other words, the Planning Commission has not taken up and dealt with their recommendations yet nor has the Water Commission so we’re waiting for those and then we’ll get them in with the departments and get their input at the same time. Also, we’re inviting speakers to address topics such as nonpartisan elections. I don’t know if you realize we’re the only jurisdiction left in the state, only county which still has partisan elections now. All the rest have gone to nonpartisan so we’re going to ask people probably more from City and County of Honolulu who’ve been nonpartisan for longer than any of the other jurisdictions. We’re going to invite some folks over to speak to us on that issue. Also, neighborhood boards which have a pretty long track record on Oahu. We’re going to have some input there. Another idea that we will be looking at to some degree is the City Manager form of government vs. the Mayor so we’ve distributed quite a bit of written information internally on how those models work but I anticipate we’ll be getting some folks to speak to them. Roughly September or so we’ll begin, and maybe a little bit sooner, a detail section-by-section review of the Charter to come up with proposed amendments. We will be holding a series of meetings around the island again as we discuss and as we go through the Charter so just to give folks a chance to listen and participate as we go around the island so it won’t necessarily site-specific in terms of where we’ve heard more about that. I mean, we’ll try to be sensitive to it and if there are things that we think will be more interesting to a certain community than others, then we’ll try to accommodate that but basically we’ll just go out and hold a series of four or five or six meetings again around the island as we’re marching through.

All proposed amendments will be voted on by the public in an election in the year 2000. There has been a certain amount of discussion initially about the possibility of holding a special election and it was really in the nature of sort of a "what if" discussion. What if we feel like we’re coming up with such substantive changes to County government that that might warrant a special election so if we were to look at a special election and if we were also to look at the possibility of having an election in time to actually affect those changes in the year 2000 election. In other words, if we were to have a special election and this is, I don’t think realistic but say we were going to recommend a City Manager form of government. So when would we have to hold that to actually affect that taking place sooner rather than later? Or nonpartisan elections? In other words, if we were to come forth with a suggestion for nonpartisan elections, theoretically we could have a special election in January and then the candidates in the year 2000 election would run as nonpartisan if the voters chose to vote that in. My sense and informal opinion is that logistically, it probably wouldn’t even be possible to

have a special election even if we wanted to. One dynamic that we didn’t discuss or didn’t look at initially which I’ve become very much aware of, is that this is, the year 2000 is a presidential election year and all the resources and apparatuses that are really geared up to deal with presidential elections would probably preclude even being able to do a normal election unless we finished up almost immediately and got something on the decks for say January and as I explained the process, we’re really just getting started in terms of marching through the Charter so I would expect, but there again, this is just an informal opinion, that we’re looking at whatever suggestions we come up with on the year 2000 ballot election is how it will go.

So this evening, this is meant to be just input from the general public but since we haven’t gotten a whole lot of turnout, we’re having a little bit of back and forth dialogue, if that’s appropriate, with some of the speakers but I just want to stress that this Commission has not formally discussed anything yet in terms of Charter amendments so everything is just a possibility at this point.

Our first speaker this evening is Bill Graham from Kohala representing himself. Bill.

GRAHAM: Good afternoon. I haven’t prepared in depth the specific things I want you to deal with specifically or anything like that but of course, it’s sort of - the mind kind of accumulates concepts and ideas over the years. First off, since you did bring up the special election thing, I would like to sort of say nay on that. I think that would be a mistake to try to do that. I think the general -

RAY: Bill, can you think of anything or any possible change to County government, in your mind, that would warrant a special election because that’s really how we’re looking at it? If we thought there were something that was so major, we were trying to look at it, I think, in a positive sense of engaging the public in a really dynamic process and change. I know the numbers on special elections are pretty dismal, right? So generally it tends to work out the opposite, that you get fewer people participating in a special election but I just wondered if you had any -

GRAHAM: I would only say that if at these meetings you’ve been having, you were having big turnouts and a lot of people were talking about the same thing that they really needed done then somehow, in response to the public need as expressed by the public, you might want to accelerate something but clearly that’s not what’s going on so it seems inappropriate to me.

RAY: Okay.

GRAHAM: On the general thrust, I think the thing that most strikes me is sort of the balance of power with the Council vs. the Mayor. I worked on that single member district issue that came through ten years ago where the Council was changed from being at-large Council members to single member districts. At the same time, the Council term got put from four years to two years and just as an aside, that was sort of a bad hooking together of two different concepts. So I hope you all, this time around, when two concepts don’t have to be hooked together, you don’t hook them together at all. But in any event, at that time, like our current Mayor, Steve Yamashiro, was on the Council and he was even saying prior to the voting by the public on this issue that he perceived it as being a large swing of power from the Council to the Mayor if in fact we got single member districts along with the two year terms which is in fact, what we did get. The two year terms got thrown in also. So getting to my point, my point is I don’t think you guys can fuss around with the terms of Council Members anymore because that’s been attempted a few times and it’s not really something the public wants to go for so I still think that imbalance that came about as a result of that last Charter change needs to be addressed. So I think you all should try to address some issues that would restore power more to the Council vis-a-vis the Mayor and I’m not sure what they might be. You all maybe know a lot better. One thing, you could have the Council Members appoint this Commission next time around. Planning Commission, you know the appointments are obviously a real area of power and influence by the Mayor so there has been discussion before about having the Planning Commission Members be appointed by the Council Member from those districts. I have no sense in my mind whether that’s good or bad but I know it’s been spoken of so I just wanted to bring that up. So I do wish you all would address some issues to bring some more power back to the Council.

RAY: In regard to the Council Members, two year Council term members, appointing say the Planning Commissioners, and for what term. I don’t see how that -

GRAHAM: You mean it seems inappropriate that a two year term would appoint someone for a larger than a two year term? Well, we certainly have elected people in Washington that are also appointing judges for life and all that kind of stuff so it doesn’t seem like it’s unprecedented to do that.

MARTIN: I’d like to thank you for your comments and I appreciate your time coming here this evening. I guess I’m going to ask you a question on what you now asked us to possibly look at, in that the Mayor appoints the people. The Council now approves or disapproves of them. So you’re saying that they should have more power than just approving or disapproving?

GRAHAM: Correct.

MARTIN: Okay. As I think our chairman has mentioned earlier, there has been some literature and possibly some discussion. I see a letter now here from the general public, in regards to a Managing Director type government. Well, how do you feel about something like that?

GRAHAM: I don’t really feel qualified. I haven’t really researched that enough. I know it’s a very important issue. On your first point about approving, whether the Council just approves or whether the Council nominates. Let me take an example like the U.S. Supreme Court. Obviously, you know that the Court nominees get approved by the Senate yet the President wields tremendous power in that. And we’ve seen through different presidents the nature of the Court change because of that, so clearly there’s a big difference between just approving and nominating.

GRAHAM: Sure. Let’s see, another just slightly different issue but I remember the last time we went through the General Plan Review. The General Plan Review time, this was Lyman last time around. For those who are concerned about long range planning and development of the County, normally when a change is made requiring a General Plan amendment, there is an environmental impact statement and process that flows off of that that goes on. The only time that gets circumvented is if the Planning Director puts through some changes to the General Plan which effectively could be a spot aid to some particular project that he’d like to see happen for whatever reason and I think that’s sort of a flaw in the system that that can happen and I know that that was an issue the last time around and I don’t have the solution for you but I feel like you should try to come up with some solution so we don’t run into that problem again.

Another issue that I feel like the County really suffers with is politicalization of the Fire Department and the Police Department and I don’t bring that up as a slap at our current administration because that’s been going on from way back (undiscernable) and twenty years and more and I think our County government has put up with that for a long time and I think maybe the main culprit is the public doesn’t seem to stand up and do anything about it. Nevertheless, if there are ways that you folks, through the Charter, can make that function less easily, I think it would be a big benefit to the people of the County.

I think that’s enough for me.

HERKES: I don’t know if John mentioned that all of this is recorded. We have like 126 pages of minutes from all of these meetings to read so we always have to talk into microphones. It seems kind of unfriendly.

Thank you for your comments, especially about hooking concepts together in ballot places. I work in the polls during election day, and this last election day, the Primary and the General, was a nightmare and I don’t know how we can - The County Clerk tells me that that’s how they have to write the ballots. I don’t believe him so we’ll work on some kind of way not to hook concepts together and to have specific things. And also something else you brought up, we’ll try and do some cost benefit ratios using even some external, some social costs and social to any proposals that we suggest so that there’ll be some reason and rationale behind anything that - and the people that testify can help us with this. Like we’d like a Managing Director because it works better, because it’ll be more efficient even if we have to pay him $200,000 a year, it will work better in a county. And that’s one of the questions that I’ve asked everybody, if you had to pay a Managing Director $200,000 a year, could you swallow it? That’s the going rate for Managing Directors. So that’s a tough salary for us to swallow in a budget year where we’re all looking for things but you know, if it ran more efficiently and other things were equal.

I’ve lived in this county for over 50 years so I’m always interested in the balance of power question because in that time, the balance of power has swung back and forth with the same Charter, with the same rules but with different people and I’m always interested in how you design that so that it doesn’t swing back and forth. We have the present system of government now because a Council person was too aggressive and too strong so that’s why we have a Mayor. Otherwise, we had a Board of Supervisors and a Chair. We have a Mayor because one Council person got pretty far out there. He lives in your district too. But that’s an interesting question as to how you write language that ensures that when it really depends on the personalities of the people involved. So if you’ve got any suggestions on how you write the language, I’d loved - since I’ve been struggling with that.

GRAHAM: I guess you just try to write the language as neutral as you can in that balance of power and then just accept that it will swing one way or the other with the personalities. But if the language itself is oriented one way or the other, then I think you have something to correct.

HERKES: And I think you’ll have to recognize that the Council has given up power to the Planning Commission along the way. They give up their power to the Planning - there are decisions that the Planning Commission’s been empowered to make that really should be made by the County Council but in the past years, they’ve had not enough time, they’ve had other issues and so they’ve given up that power to the Planning Commission. I’m not sure you can legislate that. I’m not sure you can write that into - they get to do what they want to do. They are a legislative body. So that’s a recognition of some dynamics that are interesting in there too.

GRAHAM: Sure.

RAY: Since Marni brought it up, Bill, in terms of the Planning Commission, the authority of the Planning Commission and also the physical jurisdiction, I know in times in the past, the idea of separate Planning Commissions for whether it’s East and West Hawaii, but I think it was more an issue of the workload, right? What was realistic for a lay volunteer group to take on, right? That it just seemed like an awful lot, right? And I know you’ve been so involved in that process over the years so do you have any thoughts or comments on both the authority issue because we’ve certainly discussed that at the County Council in the past, the idea. And you know, it works differently in different counties in the state, right?

GRAHAM: Well, I don’t generally think of the Planning Commission as somebody with a lot of authority other than the SMA permits. And those are ones that are obviously controversial.

RAY: And so you don’t think that is - that’s not an issue with you, their jurisdiction over the SMA permits?

GRAHAM: No, it is very much an issue and for that reason, I think it is important, what you’re saying, how we deal with the Planning Commission.

RAY: As far as the workload, I mean, is it your sense that the way it works now is realistic in terms of the enormous amount of research and the number of meetings.

GRAHAM: I sure think it feels like the amount of work they have to do is a lot and they’re obviously getting minimal compensation for it, mileage or something like that, so you’d get better input from somebody who’s been on a Planning Commission but it seems to me, to spread the load around amongst more people like two Planning Commissions might be a helpful change.

RAY: Okay. Any other questions for Mr. Graham? All right, thank you very much, Bill.

Our next speaker is Lesley Patton.

PATTON: Good evening. I didn’t bring anything formally prepared but I do share some of the concerns of Bill Graham and there’s sort of three or four that form a circular pattern. You could get in at any point in the circle and I’ll start off with the Planning Commission and the Water Commission. I have a strong personal preference to see these Commissioners elected. We live in a state in which there is not an actual local government and State and County are it. And as a part of the United States, this sits funny with me that the average citizen in their own community doesn’t have more actual input into the decision making process. And both the Planning Commission and the Water Commission are pretty sensitive Commissions right now. Their decisions can have some very far reaching and controversial results so I personally would favor having those be elected.

The discussion that you just completed about the Planning Commission, and maybe this one body is overworked. Again, this is a function that local government could cover if we had it but that’s an issue that has to be decided at a state level, whether we can have local government.

And that brings up to me, the issue you mentioned of having perhaps, considering the issue of neighborhood boards and I’ve been here 18 years now and I keep watching the news and reading the newspapers to see how the neighborhood boards work, on Oahu in particular, and they don’t satisfy me in a sense of full participation inasmuch, to my understanding, as they advise. They do the legwork for the Council, to make it possible to continue with county government rather than local government. And then, they can reach their decision, their recommendation but it can be overturned by the Council and so that doesn’t feel like full democracy to me and I would not like to see neighborhood boards started on this island because I have a feeling that if they get started then there’s not much momentum or chance for it to actually proceed to incorporated townships or cities. And I really feel that the differences between Hilo and Kona need to be addressed by the citizens of those respective communities. And up in Kohala where I’m from, we have an entirely different viewpoint, even from what’s going on here in Waimea. Our communities shared some similarities in the past but increasingly we’re moving in different directions and we don’t yet have a governmental mechanism for dealing with that so I would not wish to have neighborhood boards on this island.

And that also ties into the issue that was raised about Mayor or County Manager. Again this is an issue because we don’t have local government. Where I grew up, you have Mayors of townships and that’s a reasonable sized unit for - geographically, etc. it’s more homogenous than this island is so that I would much rather see a Mayor at a local level and a County Manager at a County level which is, we can’t put townships in through the County Charter but it’s a goal of mine ultimately if we can ever get through the State Legislature with it. But I wouldn’t want to do anything that would take away from that momentum.

RAY: Okay. Any questions? No? All right, thank you very much.

Our next speaker is Richard Boyd.

MARTIN: Actually I have a question.

RAY: Okay.

MARTIN: Just a simple question. If there were to be neighborhood boards and they were to have some authoritative power, would you be in favor of that?

PATTON: If they had substantially the powers that a local government normally enjoys in the other 49 states, yes.

MARTIN: Thank you.

RAY: Can you speak into the mike, please?

BOYD: I’ll try to do that.

RAY: Thank you very much.

BOYD: Yes, my name’s Richard Boyd. I’m from North Kohala as are most everybody over here except this one gentleman from Waikoloa. So you can tell -

RAY: I think they must just trust their Chairman here in Waimea. That must be it, I don’t know.

BOYD: The Commission should note that North Kohala people care. Not to say that other community people don’t care but we drove up here.

RAY: Thank you very much.

BOYD: And we’re here for a purpose. Anyway, I don’t disagree with anything that’s been said by Bill so far or Lesley and I pretty much know what Ken’s going to say and I don’t disagree with what he’ll be saying. I just want to elaborate a little, as you know, Mr. Ray, that water has been my area of interest. I’ve appeared before the Water Commission at least a dozen times. I’ve been before the Planning Commission on certain projects as well. However, in looking at the Charter, one of the problems that I have and I believe that it would be more equitable if the members were either elected or appointed by the Council person from their district. However, I note here that in the Charter it says that Commission Members, this is Water Commission now, the Department of Water Supply. Commission Members shall be representative of the community

RAY: Page 15. Sorry, I was just letting them know what page.

BOYD: Oh, page 15, Article VIII. The county geographical areas of Puna, Ka’u, Kona, Kohala, Hamakua, and Hilo. Well, when you look at Ka’u, that’s a huge county or, pardon me, a huge district, as is Kohala and I really believe that you need to get, instead of three at-large members as this calls for, I really believe you need to get more people on this Water Commission. For example, I would suggest that you had a representative from Waikaloa, one from Waimea and one from North Kohala because I think -

RAY: How about just one from each single member district? From each Council district?

BOYD: From each Council district? No, I just don’t think -

RAY: So you think there should be more than nine?

BOYD: Yes I do and I think that Ka’u needs more. I think Oceanview Estates, I lived down in Ka’u in ‘70 and ‘71. Those people and their needs are entirely different than are the needs of the people in Pahala and Naalehu and so on. And I’m not familiar with Puna but I’ve talked with a couple of folks out there at Water Commission meetings and it’s really, they feel sort of like we do out there, we really don’t feel like, or at least myself, I’m speaking for myself and many others that I’ve talked to, that you really have any representation on the Commission. I wrote a letter to Mr. Pavao about this. Got a letter back from the Chairman at the time. I can’t think of his name now. He’s not with the Commission anymore but he said that district reps from the Water Commission, their loyalty has to be to the County as a whole as opposed to the district and I can understand that to a degree but I just don’t think that that’s really kosher or that that really floats. I think these Commissioners need to get feedback from people in North Kohala, Waikaloa and Waimea as well and I think our last Commissioner from up here, Fred Yamashiro, really didn’t care much what we said out in North Kohala and I told him that. I’m not speaking behind his back.

The same thing with the Planning Commission. I would note that, oh and by the way too, it also says here that these people are appointed by the Mayor and approval of the Council but then on page 16, the last section, 8-5, it says the ‘Administrative Supervision - the department of water supply shall come under the general supervision and control of the mayor’. So you know, I don’t see any autonomy there. I think it all goes under the Mayor has supreme power on this particular issue. And moving on to the Planning Commission, I would note -

RAY: Dick, before you leave the water issues, do you have any thoughts or comment on the qualifications for the Manager being required to be a registered engineer?

BOYD: I think that’s a good qualification and I personally think a lot of the present Water Commissioner even though I’m involved in a lawsuit with the Water Department. I think a lot of Mr. Pavao and I think that he’s a victim of being under the Mayor, if I might throw that out there. Did that answer your question?

RAY: Yes.

BOYD: Yes, I think you need an engineer there. Moving on to the Planning Commission would be another one where I feel as though and I should have opened with this. I believe that having appeared before the Commission so many times, the Water Commission, the people that were on the Water Commission are sincere people and I would never impugn their honesty but as this Commission is similar, you have different viewpoints, different perspectives. On Oahu, I was in real estate. I was a contractor. I did different things and I would come to the table with a different perspective were I still in those businesses. I’m not in those businesses anymore and I notice most of the commissions, if you look at them, they come to the table with a different perspective. I think we need to have more representation from different areas of the community. I don’t think native Hawaiians have been given fair shift. I don’t think environmentalists per se, have been given a fair amount of involvement in these commissions. The only reason I say that, I think that’s important because if you look at the Planning Commission, in the last five years that I’ve been following this, there’s been lawsuits against the Planning Commission and a number of them are in the Supreme Court now and they haven’t won them all and it’s all taxpayers’ money going out there and I believe if the Planning Commission had a little more balance in there and there’s a little more give and take amongst the Commission Members, some people might change their viewpoint a little. They might vote a little different but when everyone is of the same perspective, has the same viewpoint, and they don’t hear - it’s like a jury. When you go into a jury, if you’ve ever served on a jury, and sometimes you have your mind made up and then all of a sudden somebody gives you another perspective on something and you say, whoa, yeah, I didn’t think of that. And I really believe that needs to come to the Commissions. And that’s all I really have to say other than I support the fact that there either should be elected - Commissioners should be elected and the Mayor should be out of the picture and/or the elected official from that district should have something to do with the appointment of those people. I could live with that.

RAY: Marni. Ms. Herkes.

HERKES: Thank you, Mr. Boyd. I love your comments about the Water Commission because a lot of us have testified against the statewide Water Commission which just follows down into the County Water Commission. It’s actually the same gripe. The same concern is that individual districts are not being represented. I am kind of confused and you used Ka’u as a large district. You used Kohala as a large district. Is it your perception that it would be better if people were appointed by geographical square footage rather than numbers of people?

BOYD: That’s something that I would have to give more thought to. All I know is that people in North Kohala have a different perspective about how water should be used and where it should come from, where it should go. Their thoughts on water are different than say Waikaloa or Waimea.

HERKES: But not necessarily from Hilo.

BOYD: Yes.

HERKES: Hilo and Kohala have lots of water so that’s where the thoughts come from but it comes from people rather than the geographical square footage or square mileage.

BOYD: You know, right now North Kohala is on water restriction. Those people that get surface water are on water restriction.

HERKES: Yes, I know.

BOYD: And so there’s a lot of different viewpoints.

HERKES: It was just what I heard was kind of a different thing than I’ve ever thought of before because usually, you know, we’re by vote where it’s apportioned by the numbers of people rather than how large the district is.

There’s another thing that you just brought up about lawsuits and that different perspectives might lend to different decisions. My understanding is lawsuits are brought about by faulty process, not faulty perspectives and I wondered if that was really what you meant to say, that faulty perspectives was what brought the lawsuits rather than faulty processes.

BOYD: It’s over my head.

HERKES: Okay.

RAY: George. Mr. Martin.

BOYD: Sorry but I don’t know what you mean exactly by that. In other words, I just feel that I’ve been at Planning - I’m sorry, George. I’ll be with you in one second. I do want to try to comment on that. It’s just that the commissions, the Planning Commission I was thinking of specifically. My suit with the Department of Water Supply has nothing to do with the decision that the Water Commission made.

HERKES: Oh, I understand.

BOYD: It’s strictly an administrative thing. The Planning Commission though which I have never had a lawsuit with or anything like that, but the Planning Commission - I believe if they had different people that had those different perspectives, they might have come to different decisions that would have prevented that from being brought into the courtroom because that was the court of last resort, so to speak. The decision was made, was set in stone and the only way that people could try to reverse it would be to go to court. Is that what you meant or is that?

HERKES: That’s part of it. That’s really not what I meant because I think there is a diversity but I agree with you, it could be better expressed. There could be a better diversity in the Water Commission and in the Planning Commission. I think that that’s something that you try to reach for is a lot of different viewpoints, being able to get all those inside in the beginning but I think also that it’s very dangerous if we talk about suing somebody because of their perspective. I think that really we ought to talk about suing somebody because they do something illegal. That we go to court for people because they don’t follow the process and I think that’s where the Planning Commission is in court for, is that they didn’t follow the process.

BOYD: Well, I think you’re referring to the Kona -

HERKES: I’m referring to all of them.

BOYD: All of them, okay. Well, you could be right. I really don’t know on that, I’m sorry.

RAY: Mr. Martin.

MARTIN: I consider myself to be the layman on this Commission. I work in Hilo for a construction company as a mechanic. There is another mechanic that is also on the Commission with us, though.

Correct me if I’m wrong. Now I heard you say that whether they be appointed and/or elected by general populace that they’re coming in with a mind set as Commissioners. Is that what you said? And you’d like us somehow to write something into the Commission, or into the Charter that would change that?

BOYD: Well, I think when the Mayor appoints people to commissions, has he may well have with this and I mean no insult to anyone’s honesty or integrity, but he picks people that might have a certain perspective, a certain viewpoint and by taking him out of picture, or a she mayor, whoever, I really believe that there’s a possibility of some grass roots people getting in that would have a different perspective, that’s all.

MARTIN: Okay, I hear what you’re saying and I think I do understand what you’re saying but you would have the same situation if in fact, the geographics were to be put in the Council’s hands and the Council were to appoint these individuals. You’d still have that situation where a possible mind set is looked for and/or not looked for, don’t you think?

BOYD: It’s possible, yeah, but if this person’s elected and he’s from your district or area - I don’t know. You know John and I had our ups and downs. We communicated and then we didn’t and then we communicated and now we’re communicating again but I think that you have a better chance of getting in the door with your local Council person than you do with the Mayor.

MARTIN: Okay, thank you.

HERKES: Okay, I have another question.

RAY: Steve. Sure.

KUROZAWA:

I just have a quick question. Your proposal about having multiple Commission Members within the district, for example, Kohala, Waimea, you know, having in Waikaloa, in this area. With that mind set, what numbers are you thinking island-wide would that involve because now there’s nine.

BOYD: You’re right and I thought about that and I thought about, okay, you know, how many you’re going to need from Puna. How many are you going to need from out Ka’u way and would South Kona need an extra person and the logistics are - you know, you would have more people, that’s true.

KUROZAWA:

If you choose by pockets of population, you might have 30 people on the Commission basically.

BOYD: You know, you’re right and I recognize that and I don’t know the answer to that.

KUROZAWA:

And actually, in some ways, I think what you’re doing is what, part of the answer to it is having a set number, a finite number of Commissioners and having people like yourself come and inform us of what’s really going on. Having 30 Commissioners may not help our knowledge pool basically but let me just say, if you’ve thought about the numbers it would involve.

RAY: Marni.

HERKES: I want to continue that line a little bit. The Waimea Water Round Table is a group of interested -

RAY: Mr. Boyd participates. He’s intimately familiar.

HERKES: Okay. Now, that to me is the advisory group for the Water Commission on the Waimea area and they don’t have to take the advice of the Water Round Table but they would be well advised to take it and I think that that’s probably - is that the kind of thing that you’d like to see in Ka’u or you’d like to see in Kohala?

BOYD: That sounds like a - I attend this thing and I like it because it brings adversarial people to the table and they can lay out their viewpoints and how they feel about things. They can do that and I think that’s a good start. That would be good but it’s in Waimea and I think some of your most knowledgeable water people are from this area. I’m not saying that Ka’u people, or something, or Puna are a bunch of dummies. I don’t mean that at all but you need to have somebody out there to organize and put this together. This was put together by David Tarnas and John. To my knowledge, John Ray put this Waimea Water Round Table and they have Steve Bowles who is a hydrologist and he’s heavily into the knowledge of what’s going on out here in this area. I don’t know how you’d match that down in Kona, South Kona or Puna or in those areas.

HERKES: Don’t give them a water well and they’re going to have one.

RAY: Okay, good. Steve. Mr. Bess.

BESS: I’m a little confused. You would like the Commission Members to either be elected or appointed. Now, assuming we go the appointment route, there is no check and balance on who that person appoints. In effect, the Council Member, as you’re suggesting, would pick the person and no one would approve that appointment. It would be his appointment in and of itself. Is that right?

BOYD: If that’s the way we went, yes. Or are you asking how I would -

BESS: Yes, I’m asking you how would this appointment work. Is this an appointment that is not subject to approval or any check and balance by any other entities such as the other Council Members.

BOYD: No, the people in the Water Commission, for example, would have to approve of this person coming in. The Water Commission itself.

BESS: Oh, so the Council Member would appoint and then it would go to the Water Commission and then the Water Commission would approve that appointment. Thank you.

RAY: Any other questions? All right, thanks Dick.

BOYD: Thank you.

RAY: And our last speaker, Ken Boche.

BOCHE: Aloha everyone. Thanks for having us here and coming out for this little meeting. What I put together is pretty hastily done and not in any real presentable form but there are a few issues I’d like to raise at least in this initial round of public meetings.

You’d mentioned the special elections and I would like to echo the nay on that just because of the timing, the expense and the fact that more people are going to come out for a presidential/mayoral election or a general election than we could expect to see in a special election in January so, just in terms of public participation, I think making the acceptance or putting the Charter amendments or the whole draft of the Charter, if you’re going to go that route which I guess, you’re empowered to do so by the Charter. Doing that in conjunction with an ordinary general election would be my recommendation.

I’m really concerned that I’d like to see diversity of representation in County government, particularly on the Boards and Commissions. And I want to come back to that theme a couple of, several times here. But I want to give a couple of general comments and one is the need for public discussion and that public discussion is not taking place at the present time in any other the - not in the newspapers and not in the County Council meetings and the public discussion about how our County government works and what would be the best for the County. Should we have a Managing Director? Shall we have a Mayor? Those kinds of public discussions will only occur if you people choose to put those proposals on the ballot because only once they go on the ballot will we actually have a public discussion and the costs and benefits can be more thoroughly aired in public. And by limiting yourselves to having the smaller number of issues, maybe, oh let’s just choose three or four and put them on the ballot and see how that falls out, is actually, in my view, would do a disservice to the whole process which we wait ten years for. And so I would encourage you anyway, to put - don’t be afraid to put a whole lot of issues on the ballot so that we get public discussion because that’s what democracy’s about.

John and Mr. Martin, you brought up the idea of having a two year Council person elect a five year Planning Commissioner or Water Commissioner, okay. I think that’s actually a good idea because it will, for somehow and for some reasons, and there are of course, certain exceptions, some Council Members, most Council Members want to get re-elected. Okay, not all of them. But if they get elected to their first two year term and they then appoint some dodo to whatever commission to represent their district, they may hear about it in the next in the two year election cycle and so there’s actually some checks and balances there in terms of the effect on the community. That Council Member is then held accountable for his or her appointments. And then I wanted to disagree with Mr. Boyd on exactly now these appointments take place. I would like to see, and this is Section 13-4 right in the Charter which deals with Boards and Commissions. And I haven’t actually come down on a favored scenario but the two that make the most sense to me, in order to get this diversity, is to either have the County Council appoint the Commissioners, with the approval of the County Council, so there is an approval body. In other words, if Mr. Elarionoff says well, I want to appoint Dick Boyd to the Water Commission, the other Council Members get to review his qualifications and whatever, and be able to then say yea or nay, much as they do now with the mayoral appointees. So there is a check and balance. So I would favor that very strongly and it’s not just, you know I don’t go to the Water Commission. That’s almost like the fox guarding the hen house. I mean it could be. I don’t really mean it is but it could be. So that would be my recommendation.

The other one, the other possibility is publicly funded nonpartisan elections. And I stress the publicly funded ones because these Boards and Commissions are not paid, I don’t think. Their expenses, I guess, are paid but it’s somehow the expenses of holding the elections and I don’t mean campaigning, but I mean, and I think maybe that the County needs to experiment with publicly funded elections as a way of maybe having kind of campaign finance reform and to do it for the Boards and Commissions might be real beneficial in terms of our learning curve as to how that might work and it wouldn’t be so charged as to have all County government being, or the County Council being - you come right out of the thing, oh, let’s do publicly funded elections. Maybe we could try it with the Boards and Commissions and since it’s the County’s business, the campaigning could be restricted to statements of positions and qualifications which are published by the County Clerk and sent to every registered voter. I think that this is done. I’m actually surprised that here in Hawaii we do not get a sample ballot with all the initiatives and all of the referendums and the recalls and all of the candidates. We never see that. It’s not mailed to us by the Elections Office. We have to look in the newspapers for the political ads and there is some, maybe a League of Womens Voters will have position papers or at least put out people’s positions but to have it official, it wouldn’t cost that much to have the particular positions and qualifications of people and maybe public forums. You want to be elected to the Board or Commmission, you come before your community and if we had a single one, and I would go for the single member districts. Follow the single member districts. It makes more sense than trying to have three from Kohala even though there could be a conflict and we have found that the people in Kohala might be opposed to the people in North Kohala and South Kohala because they both want to use the same water, or at least they think they do. But I would think it’s simpler to keep it with the single member district. Appointees or elections and that just streamlines the whole shebang.

I think it seems like the balance of power is heavily swung toward the Mayor’s side and I would like to see it swing back a little bit and I think by changing the method of electing or appointing the Boards and Commissions, that would help to balance, not only the balance of power but also increase the diversity of representation. And I think that diversity of representation is really important for gatherings. As John knows and maybe I guess no one else does, I facilitate a group for the Kohala Forest Management Group actually right here in this room on various Thursday evenings and it’s really a good process to have the different viewpoints at the table and I participate in the Waimea Water Round Table as well so it’s workable and it doesn’t have to be adversarial and I think with practice and a properly designed Charter, will do a lot to both increase representation and change the balance to more of a balance and that’s really what I’m trying to encourage you to try to design into the Charter.

The public discussion I mentioned. The Manager’s salary, if it’s $200,000 a year, to me if it turns out that it’s a better way to manage our County, it’s a very small - the increment from the $65,000 or the $85,000 or whatever the Mayor gets, to make that next jump, is a drop in the bucket compared to the importance of getting an efficient representative, an accountable County government. It’s a small price to pay for that and we can afford it and I would actually say that we can’t afford not to do it. If it does offer it, and I don’t know that it does, but I think it’s something that we really ought to think about and we ought to have the discussion in the public arena and only then, with an informed electorate, can we really decide.

So I have under ARTICLE III, LEGISLATIVE BRANCH, COUNTY COUNCIL, Section 3-16 Mandatory Program Review. It is my understanding that this Mandatory Program Review is not taking place as it’s stated in the Charter that it shall be done and so I don’t know. I think it’s a good idea that programs should be reviewed. I see a problem with enforcement. Then how do you compel the County Council. I think it’s their job, right? It’s their job to do it so how do you compel the County Council to do their job? I don’t know but maybe that -

RAY: I think it’s more a question of resources and logistics that -

HERKES: And priorities.

BOCHE: Yes, you know better than I and so I’m just saying what I read in the Charter and I see it not happening so I don’t know.

ARTICLE IV, the EXECUTIVE BRANCH, I’m for the proposal to be put on the ballot to replace the Mayor with a County Manager of some kind for the public discussion at least.

ARTICLE V, EXECUTIVE BRANCH, Planning Commission. This is just again, a reiteration of how do we choose these Members and publicly funded nonpartisan elections, by Council district or appointment by the Council Member, seem to be the two best ways and I think, you know I don’t know much about the Liquor Commission and the Police Commission and there isn’t a Fire Commission although I know a fireman in Kohala who thinks there should be and he will send you a fairly long list of reasons why and maybe I’ll get to that here in a second.

ARTICLE VI, EXECUTIVE BRANCH, the Fire Department. It’s this fireman’s contention, who lives in Kohala and he has wrote the operating manuals for hazardous wastes or hazardous materials handling and various other things for the County Fire Department. It’s his opinion, I spoke to him this morning, that the County is at great financial risk from lawsuits because the Fire Department is not handling their duties according to commonly accepted practices and federal law. And the County could very easily be found negligent because the Fire Department is not really doing their job correctly and I don’t know how to legislate it and I just point that out to you and you’ll probably get some communications from at least one person regarding this and the problems he’s had just getting the Fire Chiefs and the officers to understand the law. He says they don’t understand the law. They don’t know what they’re supposed to do. They don’t know what their job is so how do you get qualified people to serve as the officers of our Fire Department or Police Department? I don’t know.

ARTICLE VIII, the DEPARTMENT OF WATER SUPPLY. Okay, same deal on trying to figure out how to get them elected or appointed. I also differ from Mr. Boyd on when John Ray asked him whether he thought the requirement to be an engineer is a good one. And it’s stated in the Charter that the Manager of the Department of Water Supply shall be an engineer, a registered engineer and I don’t believe that’s a good requirement and I’ll tell you why. When you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Okay? When you’re an engineer who’s good at designing and expanding wells and water delivery systems, that becomes the glasses through which you view the world and in our discussions in the Waimea Water Round Table and it’s a good process and I’m really glad that I’m invited and play a part in that, I asked Mr. Pavao, and I brought it up in there, that if we’re in a time of tight budgets in government, it’s important for us to look at least cost solutions to our County’s needs, whether they’re businesses or residences or whatever our needs are, it’s really important to look at least cost options. Okay, if you’re an engineer that’s drilling wells and building pipelines, that’s your only solution and you don’t look at water efficiency. You don’t look at other least cost solutions that are being implemented as we speak, around the country by forward thinking people who don’t have a supply mentality. The demand side management can yield more water for less cost and yet the County government has no mechanism for actually doing those evaluations and that’s why I’ve advocated in print, an integrated water resource management planning process and that will eventually come to this island because the County Department of Water Supply now does not look at the least cost options and all the public input and accountability that goes into what would be an integrated water resource plan and planning process. And so again, the process is important and that this be implemented and I guess it’s going to be funded by the State government after they’re done with Oahu. Anyway, so the Manager should be able to hire the engineers he needs but he needs to direct policy and be able to do assessments and financial assessments of the least cost ways to supply water needs and not necessarily how to build more pipelines to provide the water services. Our needs aren’t in terms of gallons per day. Our needs are in terms of cold water to drink and water for our crops. I have a nursery business so you know I’m very concerned that agricultural water be available but at a least cost and that the total array of options be mandated by the planning process.

Under Section 8-5. Administrative Supervision. Department of Water Supply. I would like to see that come under the general supervision and control of the County Council just because if the Water Commission is then appointed by the Council or by election, then have the Department of Water Supply be under the supervision of the Council because it means more accountability. Right now they’re semi-autonomous. They have their own water fund which I’m not against necessarily. I don’t understand the water fund as well as I might so I’m not going to make a recommendation at this time on how that’s structured. I do know that the Department of Water Supply also has a policy of maintaining the same rates for water, no matter what community you live in. You still pay X dollars per thousand gallons whether you live in an old community like Pahala where the water has been implemented years ago and is very inexpensive, and a new system that may cost tens of, or at least several millions of dollars, to bring water to some of the newer areas of the county and there’s no necessary reason that I can see that the water rates paid by particular users need to be the same if the costs of the counties are different, or one part of the county - if it costs more to develop water in Kona, maybe the Kona people should pay more water than in Hilo. Right now, I don’t know who makes that policy but it’s not made by any elected official. It’s not made by the County Council. It’s not made by the Water Commission. I think it’s made by the Manager. Is that correct, John? Who makes that decision?

RAY: I think it’s made by the Commission. The Commission has jurisdiction over that.

BOCHE: So anyway, enough on the water.

INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM, ARTICLE XI. I’d like to see a lowering of the percentage requirements for the petitioners. You need to have apparently 15% of the signatures of the last mayoral election or something like that and I’d like to see that come down to 10% or 5% or something that’s more reasonable for people who want to actually bring forth ordinance for the public to consider and this again, will bring more diversity of ideas and more public discussion about better ways, perhaps or maybe not, to manage our County and whatnot.

ARTICLE XIII. GENERAL PROVISIONS. This Section 13-4 on Boards and Commissions. I ask you to look at that very carefully because that’s where every - it doesn’t matter if it’s the Ethics Commission or the Planning Commission or the Water Commission or even the Charter Review Commission. I’d like to see them all be more diversely chosen. I was particularly concerned with the Board of Ethics. That’s Section 14-5. Because the public appearance - when somebody comes up before the Ethics Board, the Ethics Board invaribly finds that nothing is wrong and I think it’s because of this lack of diversity. The Ethics Board found that there was no problem - I’m not sure but it’s my impression that I don’t think they found a problem with the Mayor spending County funds to support the irradiator project. Was that before the Ethics Board?

RAY: It goes to the State Campaign Commission.

BOCHE: That was the State Campaign Commission. Okay, I’m sorry. Anyway, the Board of Ethics, I think needs more diversity.

And finally, the Mandatory Charter Reviews. I like the idea of having these reviews every ten years. I think that should be retained in the new Charter and I would like to see the Charter Commission also be chosen with more diversity. Just the mechanism for choosing them. And that’s really about all I have. Thank you for your time.

RAY: Thank you. Questions? Ms. Herkes.

HERKES: I’ve been waiting to talk to you about diversity and I’m not going to pick on you or anybody in this room but my perception - I don’t know how many people applied to be on this Charter Commission. I don’t know how many people applied to be on the Planning Commission. I don’t know how many people applied to be on these Boards and Commissions. I do know that there’s a great shortage of volunteers for all of these Boards and Commissions. That is your fault as well as mine. If we don’t encourage people to apply for them, and the form is simple, it’s a one page form. It doesn’t take any time to fill in. Then the diversity is not going to be there. I know that the Mayor’s constantly looking for people. He gets to a point so therefore he probably is going to appoint people that he feels comfortable with. However, I do know that he’s appointed on this Commission, some very diverse people, not all friends of his. Because they applied. So when you talk about diversity of Boards and Commissions that’s a great goal but it is not happening because people are not volunteering. Nobody appoints people unless they volunteer. It is not an appointment per se. I get asked about four times a month and unfortunately this is one that I wanted to do but it’s a lot of time, as you know if you are with the Waimea Water Board. With all of us, it’s a lot of time away from your business. There doesn’t seem to be a great group of people that are willing to spend the time and I’d like to see how to make it easier, how to get greater participation, how to get more people involved in the process of government. I don’t feel it’s difficult to get involved. I think there’s a lot of different ways to get involved in discussion groups. The forestry issue is a wonderful issue to get involved, and water and they’re not confrontational. There’s a lot of great discussion things that are going on on the island but you don’t get diversity unless you get people volunteering. And we certainly have diversity on our County Council and they’re not going out asking people to apply for different Boards and Commissions. At least my understanding is there aren’t a big flood of applications. So I think that it behooves all of us to ensure that diversity. It’s our responsibility to ensure it. Not the Council or the Mayor. It’s really up to us to ensure the diversity so I encourage you to do it. Keep trying to do it. I’m trying but I’m not having a lot of luck either but I know you’re on Integrated Resource Planning too.

RAY: George.

MARTIN: I have a few questions in regards to Commissioners. Again, and I ask a question. I think I heard you say two different approaches to the same issue; one was appointed by the Council and the other was to have the Commissioners run for elected type position. Is that correct?

BOCHE: That’s correct.

MARTIN: Okay. I guess I’ll touch on both of them then. If in fact they are appointed by the Council as a direct individual and then confirmed by the rest of the Council, don’t you think possibly some quid pro quo would come into play whereas you want your person appointed, I want mine appointed. We’re going to have some situations that you may not have the right person there.

BOCHE: Anything’s possible but I think that the Council Members generally have a lot of integrity and I hope that they do. And that may be true. The thing is I think one of the advantages, it’s one thing to have the Mayor searching, as he undoubtedly does, to find qualified and willing people which admittedly, it’s hard to do. I know myself, my geography is difficult and if I had to leave my business to attend Water Commission meetings on a regular basis. I mean I gotta drive to Hilo and not to mention County Council if heaven forbid, I should ever run for County Council. I mean it’s a real hardship because I have a more than full time business and so for myself, it’s real difficult but I would think that the local Council, the County Council Members would then be searching their district. If they had the power and they knew ‘okay, it’s my year to appoint a Member to the Water Commission, the Liquor Commission and the Police Commission’, they’re going to look around their district for the people that they know and who might be qualified and so you’re going to have more of a grass roots access to more people and maybe a little more broader circle. And a lot of people say, and part of my attitude is why should I apply? I know the Mayor’s not going to appoint me because I’ve testified in various situations against some of his proposals. I don’t expect that he would look on me favorably even if he knows who I am which I’m not sure that he does because I’m not maybe that well know.

MARTIN: Okay, well getting back to my point then. In the manner in which you’re speaking ,the same thing could held true with the situation of the Council Member directly appointed. I tend to agree with what Marni was saying in that we took the opportunity to apply. I don’t believe anybody twisted anybody’s arms to appoint us. We just put the applications in and they came back and said would you be interested. I put a general one in. I said ‘hey, whatever you need help in, I’m willing to participate in,’ in ongoing county situations whether it be this Commission or any Commission at the time and it happened to be this one. So the opportunitites are there and the reason I’m saying that is I see a possibility to go to the individual Member of the district per se, Council Member appointing but there may be some problems there too and I think that the way that it’s sitting right now in that anybody has the opportunity to apply, is working. Okay. It’s not working as well as we want because we don’t have possibly the volunteers that we need. And I encourage you to apply. No problem there.

Second point that I’m going to bring up. You made mention early on in that whatever we feel should be addressed in this book and possibly not just added into it, we should put it on the ballot and put it before the people so we have some discussion. I happen to agree with you except for the fact that we’d be putting the cart before the mule and that’s what we’re going through these meetings for right now and will go through them again before we do put it on there. We’d hate to put something on and waste everybody’s time and not have exactly what the people want. So I think more interjection with the communities before we put it on is important, yes?

BOCHE: No, I agree. I wasn’t saying that you shouldn’t go through your whole process and have a couple of rounds of meetings but when you get down to are we going to have three or four amendments or are we going to have ten. It may come to that, or even fifteen, heaven forbid. Don’t make it so - give a broader choice of possible changes rather than restrict it. I didn’t mean to minimize your work because I’m sure it will be really thorough.

RAY: All right. Any other comments? Daryl.

KUROZAWA:

I had a question about when you talked about the Fire Department.

BOCHE: Yes.

KUROZAWA:

There was a recommendation for having a Fire Commission and also a comment about the hazardous waste. Was the issue - is it two separate issues for you or was it that the Commission can oversee the hazardous waste issues?

BOCHE: They’re really two separate issues. I don’t know the best way to oversee the Fire Department. I don’t know how we make the Fire Department conform to what is standard practice for the health and safety of our community. People in the Fire Department who know what the law is and what standard practices are, don’t know how to get their bosses - This one particular person was offered a job to implement essentially the operating program that he designed and wrote up and he refused because he said his bosses wouldn’t allow him to do the right thing. So he said why should I do this? Why should I beat my head against the wall? What’s the point? And so we had a situation, in his view, where the County - basic maintenance on vehicles. If the brakes aren’t fixed and the County fire truck runs into the back of some other vehicle and the lawyer looks at the maintenance log and says ‘Oh, jeez, standard maintenance procedures aren’t being done on County equipment and this particular one hasn’t had its brakes checked’ or whatever it is, the County’s wide open. You know, particularly with like hazardous wastes, and that’s just one small part of the whole responsibility of the Fire Department. One that this particular fireman is intimately familiar with and so he didn’t want any part of it. And I guess there are some, how should we say, discrimination issues in terms of if there were a study done to see who, how long people of various ethic backgrounds, how long it takes to get promotions and the make up of, say, the officers of the Fire Department relative to the general population, that the whole County Fire Department and who’s ever supposed to be overseeing it could be taken to court on that basis alone according to federal law. And you know, I don’t have intimate understanding and I expect you’ll get communications from this, and maybe other firemen that I know, detailing this in greater detail. So I’m not really qualified to say but I do see the need, just from the newspaper articles about good oversight and I do worry about hazardous materials. Having an accident or a spill on the highway and having proper procedures in place and people who are knowledgeable of the law and knowledgeable how to handle hazardous materials. So it’s a health issue and I don’t know whether a Fire Commission is going to solve that oversight problem but something has to give somehow.

RAY: Okay. Mr. Bess.

BESS: Yes, on your point on the Water Commission. As I understand it, on the Manager of the Water Department, the Council would be the supervising body of that Manager, is that right? So they would actually be engaged in administration.

BOCHE: No. I think I’m proposing that the Water Commission be appointed by the County Council.

BESS: Okay.

BOCHE: And so -

BESS: And then you talked about the article in the Charter that said that the Water Manager was under the Mayor and you had a difficulty with that. You’d prefer that he be under the Council or did I hear you?

BOCHE: Well, it’s the whole Water Department. The Department of Water Supply.

BESS: Department of Water Supply. It would be under the supervision of the County Council?

BOCHE: Yes and I’m not quite sure how that would work except that the - yes, I’m not sure how that would work.

BESS: And I don’t want to be imperious because I just want to understand. With regard to the other Commissions that would be appointed under your proposal that they be appointed by the Council Member of that district, that that department also would be under the supervision of the Council?

BOCHE: I haven’t looked at it. I don’t know the best way to administer the Water and Liquor Commission or the Police Commission. I haven’t really thought it through on each and every one but I know with the Water Commission there’s a problem, with the Planning Commission there’s problem, with representation and diversity. I don’t know that there is a problem in those areas with the Liquor Commission. I mean I don’t know what they do even.

BESS: I understand your comments with regard to trying to bring about more diversity on the Commission but I’m talking about now your comments with regard to supervision.

BOCHE: Okay.

BESS: And that’s what’s confusing me.

BOCHE: I’m not sure how it would work.

BESS: See, I think one of the things, and not to unfairly extrapolate on what you said previously about how we should provide for maximum discussion or what have you but I think when you look at this Charter, it comes from a very traditional viewpoint that (a) we have an Executive Branch that is primarily responsible for administration and we have this Council Branch that’s supposed to be policy formulation and that there’s some how or other, a separation of the two and that by building in the administration into one of those branches, that you have greater accountability. And what I’m hearing you say is that, and it may relate to your feelings about better balance of power, that the Council should have administrative functions as well as policy making functions.

BOCHE: Yes, I’m not sure. I’ll have to think about it and I think that’s one of the things that maybe I’ll take away from this meeting are your ideas for further consideration of my own. I can go back and read this and think about it because, as I say, I’ve got a couple of different ideas here about how the Boards and Commissions should be appointed and I’m not really set in stone. I’m just exploring, really trying to explore various ways to create a better County government.

BESS: Thank you.

BOCHE: That’s all.

RAY: Just try to think practically how that would work from an administrative standpoint, if you put the legislative body in that loop to make administrative decisions on how these departments function and I think that’s the point that Steve was bringing up. How that would work.

Okay, any more questions.

MARTIN: Yes, I have a comment. Maybe I shouldn’t be saying this but you made mention of a group of people per se, being higher up in the rankings of a department. If any one group participates or applies itself more than another and they do in fact, proceed up the ladder, if you will, it’s to their good luck I think and I just would be wary of comment something like that. Yes?

BOCHE: Yes, I don’t disagree with you in the best of worlds. I think either explanation is equally valid in any given specific case. People can advance by hard work, diligence, qualifications, in one system if the system is well designed and functioning in accountable system and if it’s not, they can advance by other means. And that’s all I’m saying and I’m not pointing my finger at any particular group.

RAY: Okay, thanks Ken. Lesley, you had a comment?

PATTON: I have a small technical question and a comment. The technical question was is there any stipulation or guideline for this Commission to come up with up to maximum proposed amendments or recommended or anything?

RAY: No.

PATTON: It’s open to your discretion?

RAY: Right.

PATTON: Okay.

RAY: I think the last two Charter Commissions - I think there were 13 proposed amendments the first time and 18 the second. And by the way, that’s in the front of your Charter. It lists the proposed amendments in the last two Charter reviews so that’s an interesting thing to look at - what was proposed right there in the very start. Okay?

PATTON: Thank you very much. The comment I had was sort of in response to what you had said and to you, about people applying.

MARNI: Volunteering?

PATTON: Volunteering. And tragedy is a bit large of a word but something along that line, of the thing is, in the past year there was an opening for a Water Commissioner from Kohala and there was a opening for a Planning Commissioner from Kohala and unfortunately, it was sort of a standard joke around the community that those people who had bothered to become informed and involved at a community level would not apply because they did not perceive, in a Mayor appointed Commission in this particular time, in this particular administration, any hope of being selected. And so, because it is mayorally appointed and because there’s politics in almost any decision that’s made, volunteerism is discouraged whereas if you had an election, it would depend on the people in your district knowing you and what your positions are and it would also, by having election as Ken said, put the issues right out in front for discussion. What’s the forum at this point for discussing, in a community, a particular issue? We sort of have to create community groups and do it and it’s like oh no, another community group, another set of meetings and this sort of thing, but an election puts it out there, puts issues in the paper, gets it discussed and then it gets a readout on the community opinion when you do the actual voting which is very different from mayorally appointed.

RAY: Okay, thank you. Dick, you had a final comment? Make it short.

BOYD: Thank ya’ll for coming up here tonight and listening to us. I’ve been to thousands of these meetings and I’ll tell you what, you guys have a tough job and I appreciate you coming up here after a hard day’s work and what not. Thank you very much for being here and you too, Madam Secretary.

RAY: Okay, thank you. Any other comments? Yes sir. You want to just come up and introduce yourself.

PERRY: I’ll take just a couple of minutes of your time. My name’s David Perry. I’m from North Kohala. I think I’m a lot like you right now in this process. I’m more listening and thinking and not really ready to talk but there’s one issue, and I was very happy to hear that there’s going to be a second round of this. Maybe by then I’ll be ready to talk more but there’s one issue that I would like to bring up briefly that hasn’t been touched on tonight and it is, in many ways, a logical extension of what Ken Boche was saying. Has to do with the County Plan.

We have a revision of the County Plan coming up and also we have what I think is a very significant thing happen, potentially significant thing happen last year. The County Commission voted to endorse the principal sustainability on this island. Now, sustainability is a word that gets bandied around to the point where it’s become almost meaningless but which is a shame because it is a word that’s full of meaning if you really begin to ask the hard questions about what it means, what it is you want to sustain, what the trade offs are, involved in sustaining the various things that people want.

Now back to the County Plan, it seems to me that this is the place and the time that we begin to engage that issue but as I look at the process -

RAY: That’s a whole separate process that is also ongoing but we don’t discuss the County General Plan. That’s what you’re speaking to?

PERRY: But there is in the Charter -

HERKES: Every ten years you have to review it.

PERRY: Every ten years you have to do it and there’s nothing I read in the Charter that says it sets up a Planning Department in order to do this and the point I’m trying to make is that planning process needs to reach out and engage the community people on this island. And it is, I’m suggesting that the Charter direct that that be done. Right now, the best I can tell, it’s done by people who are hired to do it, sitting in a Planning Department. They sit down and they do a plan. Now I think is the time that with this plan revision coming up, we need to think seriously about where we’re headed on this island. Where we want to go. And we need to engage the communities in the island in this and the Charter could not do that but it could begin to set up the mechanisms and the direction by which the people who make this plan, would do it and begin to reach out to these communities and engage them in a meaningful way about just where we’re headed. Thank you.

RAY: Okay.

HERKES: Mr. Ray?

RAY: Ms. Herkes.

HERKES: Can I just encourage you to go to the hearings, the public hearings that the Planning Department is holding on the Hawaii County General Plan? They’re on their second round of hearings now. They have already done one round. I attended five meetings around the island on those hearings and the second round of hearings is coming up in a month. So if you call the Planning Department, they’ll give you the schedule of the public meetings for the Hawall County General Plan. That process is separate from this one but it’s going on at the same time and I encourage you to have an input in that because this is how you can change that Hawaii County General Plan. Do you have a copy of the Hawaii County General Plan?

PERRY: I do.

HERKES: It’s fairly extensive and it has a lot of the things in it that you are talking about. It’s the implementation systems and those can be built into that general plan also.

PERRY: All right, thank you.

RAY: Another question? Mr. Martin.

MARTIN: Not so much for you if you want to return to your seat. I just wanted to thank you folks for coming out and one comment that you made about an elected type system of the Commissioners, general election, I think is a valid idea that would in fact, put some integrity into the situation, I think. And again, thanks for you guys’ comments and time for being here.

RAY: Okay, that concludes our public testimony and concludes our meeting. Thank you all. We’re adjourned.

The discussion ended at 7:05 p.m.

Sharron C. Henry

Secretary-Administrative Assistant

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